Slamming into a Wall

Last Thursday I hit my wall.  You know.  The Wall.  The wall you hit when you just can’t keep going on at your current pace.  The wall that unleashes all your emotions, tears, and exhaustion like an avalanche.  Marathon runners talk about this wall they hit towards the end of a race.  Then their legs give out and they do a crazy dance of delirium as they collapse.  I hate running, so I don’t fully get this metaphor, but I do know the wall that you hit when life feels crazy.  I hit the wall while on the phone with my friend.  I was trying to listen and be present with what she was saying.  Then she asked what I thought and I stopped.  I had no idea what I thought.  All I knew was that I felt tired, frustrated, guilty for not tracking with my friend, and on the verge of tears.  Hello wall. 

I’m in the midst of a busy season at work.  And while it feels as though everything else in my life has been put on hold, I realize how much my life refuses to cooperate.  I can try to be streamlined, efficient, and on-task (blech, I hate these words).  Yet, that can only last for so long before I hit the wall.

I cried a lot that day.  And since I don’t know how to cry daintily, it was a messy cry (aren’t they all).  Let me tell you, that is not a fun time to have your Kleenex run out.  TP suffices, but it just doesn’t have that soft, cushiony feeling on your nose.  I cried with my friend.  I cried by myself.  I just cried.  I stopped eventually and watched some episodes of 30 Rock (season 7 just arrived on Netflix instant), staying in bed the rest of the night.  Plus, my arm hurt from getting a flu shot that day, so there was no chance I was recovering from all of that (mostly from aforementioned wall).      

A couple of days later I returned to the tears from Thursday and found myself…grateful.  Strange, huh?  I was grateful because this avalanche of emotions didn’t come out of nothing.  They may have been amplified, but they came from true feelings in my heart.  I’m not great at acknowledging what I feel in the moment.  So, my emotions can get back logged at times.  OK, a lot of the time.  But I don’t go as long as I used to without acknowledging where I am.  I wasn’t aware of how tired and frustrated I was feeling about life.  It took this wall to awaken me back to what was truly going on inside of me.  These feelings have brought me to a place of seeking with God.

What is my next step?

Do I continue on as is or does something need to shift?

Why is it so hard for me to trust you when I’ve hit my wall?

And the big one of late: How long oh Lord?

These questions have been on my mind lately and I seem to keep coming back to them.  I don’t have any answers, but I think these questions tie into what I feel.  These questions are part of my emotional response, my prayer to God.  I can try to ignore what I feel, but when I allow my feelings a place at the table, I can sit in God’s lap, look up into his eyes, and ask.  

When There Isn't An Easy Answer

Some days I am confronted by the fact that there is not an easy answer.  Not surprisingly, this is not welcome news to me.  Or to anyone.  The reality is though, I live in a world that is overflowing with situations that cannot be explained with an easy answer.  My post the other day dealt with that exact reality.  When I realize this, the universe becomes…

Expansive.

Complex.

Unfathomable. 

And I feel miniscule. 

From what my parents tell me, I was an inquisitive child.  I was always asking “why”.  At some point, I stopped asking questions.  I ignored the unknown or tried to contain it into ill-fitting boxes.  I began to accept the easy answers.  I didn’t even question them.  My world felt safe and contained.  But life happened and it became increasingly challenging to ignore the utter chaos.  My easy answers were demolished.  I could only ignore that reality for so long before I had to give up on having all my questions answered. 

Strangely, giving up on the easy answers has been one of the best moves in my life.  I think when I looked for the easy answers, I ended up trusting the answer more than God.  I wanted to feel in control, rather than trusting that God is lovingly and capably holding the world.  At the same time, there is much that I see, which deeply saddens, and even horrifies me.  Now, I must ask why. 

One of the times when my easy answers were demolished was on 9-11.  I had lived such a peaceful, uneventful life in the U.S., and had never experienced an attack on our soil.  That night, I couldn’t sleep.  I remember lying there awake, deafened by the quiet of the night sky, no longer full of airplanes and helicopters.  I felt afraid and exposed, as if my safe world was crumbling around me.  I could not answer why.  Not in a way that would sufficiently answer the question.  I find myself repeatedly sitting with the question of why.  

Why is there war?  

Why is there injustice?  

Why has my life turned out this way? 

Last night, I was again reminded that I do not have an easy answer, specifically in regards to my singleness.  Yet, I so badly want to be able to explain or comprehend it.  I want to know why.  I want to know why right now.  I believe this lie that understanding my situation will lead to peace.  But knowledge alone will never provide that for me.  It is hard for me to trust God in these moments.  I believe he welcomes my questions and I had questions to ask last night.  I also know that his answers do not come in my timing.  So, I entered into the tension of unanswered questions.  As the tears came to my eyes, I remembered a song by Sufjan Stevens, “Oh God, Where Are You Now?”  I listened to it, and found that this song was my prayer for the moment.  I slumped on the ground, crying, and occasionally joining in singing:

Oh God, hold me now

Oh Lord, hold me now

There's no other man who could raise the dead

So do what you can to anoint my head

Oh God, where are you now?

Oh Lord, say somehow

The devil is hard on my face again

The world is a hundred to one again

Would the righteous still remain?

Would my body stay the same?

Oh God, hold me now

Oh God, touch me now

There's no other man who could save the dead

There's no other God to place our head

Would the righteous still remain?

Would my body stay the same?

There's no other man who could raise the dead

So do what you can to anoint my head

Oh God, hold me now

Oh Lord, touch me now